


empty playlists, broken promises

by Karria



Category: Vampire: The Masquerade
Genre: Gen, L.A. by Night Fanfic exchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-06-27 03:37:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19782451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karria/pseuds/Karria
Summary: Ramona witnesses something, and she isn't sure what she should do.





	1. Chapter 1

Fuck.

That kinda summarized Ramona’s thoughts on what has… transpired. Over the last few days, she was supposed to watch Eleanor. And she did so, with the help of the rat pack. It was a boring, boring mission. She could as well watch paint dry.

Until it happened. She got changed, and now she was out of control, and even though Ramona was right on her track, Eleanor turned out to be way better at hiding than initially anticipated, and she wasn’t sure if it was because she had help from another Kindred, or an unnatural instinct that helped her out. The rats were out and about town, looking in every crook and cranny, to no avail.

But she had to come out one night. There is no winning with the Beast, especially when you are freshly changed. So Ramona waited, patiently. She decided it’s better to tell Victor when she found her, as it would probably yield much better results.

When she finally managed to track Eleanor down, it was a weird place for a Kindred to be; fairly well-traversed alleyway. Ramona has been following her for several minutes before she witnessed something that would entirely change the game.

Eleanor approached another woman, a passerby, and started talking to her. Ramona noticed the other woman taking out her phone and explaining something, possibly directions to get somewhere. In the middle of her sentence, Eleanor pushed the woman into the wall, and before she could react, bit into her, brutally, keeping one hand over her mouth.

“Shit,” Ramona sweared, as she ran to the end of the alleyway to make sure no one else was coming this way. This was bad, Masquerade-breaking bad, almost-certainly-having-a-blood-hunt-called-upon-you bad. Eleanor didn’t seem to care whether she had been seen or not, and by the time Ramona got back, the woman’s body was lying limp on the floor, Eleanor nowhere to be seen.

“Do you, seriously, expect someone else to clean up after you?” Ramona growled, before nudging the body. It was completely dry, as she expected. Two dots on her neck clearly visible, still. Why the fuck was she running about? Ramona wondered, as she took care of the body. Making sure no one would see her; she transported it to another location, and made it look like there was a struggle.

Then she returned to her haven, as it was near dawn, and she was afraid going any further would actually be deadly.

She was back to square one. Eleanor disappeared into thin air yet again, and Victor was going to murder her. Or worse, he will never bring up that DJ-ing contract even again.

She took out her phone and fiddled with it for a little while. Usually, she would just call Victor to report him. The Ventrue was more reasonable than most, and he kept himself under control most of the times, but she felt like she could consider something else. Should she tell Annabelle? No; she would jump straight into it, trying to resolve everything the way she likes to do it, and not the way it should be done. Annabelle had heart and spirit, but she would act on her emotions, and that would probably be disastrous in the long run.

Jasper… could be helpful, maybe, but she was sure getting him to help would break the trust him and Annabelle had, once she finds out. And there was no doubt that she will, eventually find out.

Especially if she lets Victor know.

“Fuck it all,” she cursed. The time really couldn’t be any worse. The Second Inquisition was coming for all of them, and Eleanor could doom them, if handled incorrectly.

One of the rats peeked out of an air vent and climbed its way on her leg, then settled itself on her knees. It looked at her with its big, black eyes, and she scratched it under its chin.

“I know, Squeak. Decisions are terrible. Does the rat pack wanna watch anything? Just don’t say Game of the Thrones finale, it’s terrible and we are not watching it.”

Squeak didn’t seem to have much of an opinion on a difficulty of decision making in life, or on the preferred type of show for tonight. Ramona sighed. 

The issue of Eleanor was still very much up there, but she wasn’t sure what she should do. There was, only one other way she could, maybe, get it done.

She picked up her phone and typed in the number. She shouldn’t have it; she never got it, but she saw it enough on coterie’s phones and she memorized it, for emergencies. She guessed it was as good of an emergency as any. She hesitated again, just for a second, before making the call.

One signal, two, and there it was. Ramona took a deep breath.

“Hi, Nelli. It’s me. Yeah, I know. Victor gave me the number. Yeah. Listen I just… need to talk to you about something. It’s about Annabelle, kinda. Yeah. Tomorrow night is fine; it’s too late to meet today anyways. Yeah. Don’t bring anyone else.”

Ramona wondered if Nelli believed her. There was the probability that she would decide that she was acting suspicious and bring the entire coterie with her, but well, it was a risk she had to take. All that was left for her to do was sleep, maybe do some tracking again before the meet up, and then ask Nelli for advice.

She hoped it wouldn’t turn out too bad.


	2. Chapter 2

Nelli showed up, fashionably late as anticipated. Ramona was already waiting for her, standing in the shadows so that she would be at least a bit obstructed from view; just in case. The pack was scouting the parameter, making sure that they would be alerted if anyone approaches.

“Ramona. It’s nice to see you again.”

Ramona nodded and returned the greeting. It was turning out well so far, with no Annabelle in sight.

“You know what this is about?” The Gangrel asked, as she was aware Nelli had multiple sources and might as well have figured it out.

“I have my suspicions. Care to explain more?”

Ramona quickly got into details. Nelli’s expression remained unchanged for the majority of the explanations; changing just for a split second when she mentioned she thought about calling Annabelle, but decided against it.

“You did well,” Nelli said. “Annabelle would be heartbroken if she found out about it.”

“Aren’t you going to tell her?”

“I am, but I hope to make it easier for her… at least as much as possible. Did you find her?”

Ramona shook her head. “No, but as far as I can tell, she must have a haven somewhere in this area. Every time I’ve seen her, she’s been within walking distance of this place. I hoped you could help me and then, maybe we could figure out what to do with her.”

“You couldn’t find her?” Nelli raised her brow. “Not even with the rats?”

“Not even with the rats.”

Maybe they should’ve brought the Tremere into this as well. She knew they had been in contact with at least one, named… Eva? Yeah, that was it. But, to be completely honest, Ramona didn’t know the full extent of blood sorcery or if she would even be able to help at all.

And Nelli knew her shit.

It took them almost half the night to track her down. They traverse countless alleyways before they caught a glimpse of her, doing the same thing Ramona suspected she had been doing every night- tracking her victim. She didn’t know why she was so hungry, who was causing her to be like this, but it was almost certainly not a normal behaviour. After the Embrace came the first surge of hunger, starvation almost, but after that was sated, there was no reason for her to behave like this anymore.

But there she was, clearly following a drunk teenager. Nelli had a look on her face that didn’t exactly reveal anything; Ramona was certain, however, that she was already thinking of possible solutions to this issue.

“We should stop her before she gets to kill another one.” Ramona suggested, arms crossed on her chest.

“I wonder if she drains the victim every single time, but you’re right. We can wait until we won’t be in plain sight and, well, we should be able to overpower her.”

It’s a fairly simple plan, but Eleanor didn’t expect them, which was worrying in its own right. She seemed more like a predator than a kindred; she never checked if someone was following her or if she was able to feed safely.

It was over in a few strikes; they got her into handcuffs and evacuated before Eleanor’s victim managed to realize something’s happening. She kept snarling at them and refused to talk; thankfully, Nelli came in a car so they pushed her into the back seat and closed the door. Bailey seemed concerned, but one look from Nelli was enough for him to shut up.

“Where now?” Ramona asked, as this was the extent of her plan. She suspected they couldn’t avoid rest of the coterie for much longer.

And she was right.

“Maharaja.” Nelli decided. “Everyone needs to know, and she needs to feed. If we do it there we can make sure she doesn’t hurt anyone… and maybe then she’ll talk.”

Ramona nodded. “Is Annabelle there?”

“I don’t know.”

The drive was quiet. Eleanor calmed down after a moment, looking at them with distrust, but she still wasn’t speaking. If it was a usual Embrace, Ramona would suspect she was turned by a Brujah, maybe a Gangrel, but with what they’ve been going through recently, anything was possible.

“Do you think someone is making her hungry with magic?”

“Maybe. It happened before.”

“Will you call your Tremere?”

Nelli hesitated for a split second. “Probably, yes. But first, we need to talk with Victor.”


End file.
